Statement by Minister Zweli Mkhize during the Send-Off Briefing for Appointed

Engineers and Town Planners

Deputy Minister Nel,

Top Management

Our District Technical Support Teams,

Ladies and gentlemen of the media,

Good morning to you all and thank you for joining us.

Earlier this year I indicated that the performance of the majority of municipalities remainedbelow expectations. I said only seven percent of the country’s municipalities are classified aswell-functioning, with thirty one percent being reasonably functional, thirty one percentalmost dysfunctional while the remaining 31% is dysfunctional.

We identified 87 distressed and dysfunctional municipalities for intervention towards

recovery, working with the National Treasury. Our interventions are in line with Section 154of the Constitution, which provides that national and provincial government must support andstrengthen the capacity of municipalities to manage their own affairs, exercise their powersand perform their functions.

The current intervention programmes are clustered into three main critical areas -governance and administration, financial management and service delivery.

As part of the implementation of the recovery programme, I have undertaken visits to theEastern Cape, North West, Limpopo and the Free State. At the end of August we will be inGert Sibande district in Mpumalanga. During each visit, we meet with provincial andmunicipal leadership and intensively discuss the problems, interventions and solutions. Thepriority issues we look at include governance and administration, service delivery,infrastructure, financial management, poor revenue collection, political instability andleadership.

Today we provide an update on the service delivery aspect of the recovery programme.

I indicated in the COGTA Budget speech that in the past five years, since 2012/13, a total ofR3.4 billion in MIG transfers was stopped and was reallocated from underspendingmunicipalities to better spending municipalities. I said this was not ideal as it tended topenalise municipalities with a lower capacity and hence punishing the poorer communities.This cannot continue, rather alternatives must be found to support service delivery to poorercommunities. This is why we have decided to institute this programme. We want to solveonce and for all, the problem of money being sent back due to failure to spend it bymunicipalities.

The ability of municipalities to plan, deliver, operate and maintain infrastructure is dependentto a greater extent, on the capacity of officials to execute their responsibilities. The technicalnature of the responsibilities demands requisite levels of expertise and skills, mainly in thefield of civil engineering. The situation in the country has been such that only 55municipalities out of 257, had engineers leading their technical divisions.

I made a commitment that COGTA would, through our implementing agent, the MunicipalInfrastructure Support Agent, (MISA) urgently support 55 struggling municipalities to spendtheir infrastructure allocations. I said we would deploy District Technical Support Teams inthe affected municipalities.

We have established the District Technical Support Teams and have appointed engineersand town planners who have been deployed to municipalities in the nine provinces.

It is my great pleasure to warmly welcome to COGTA, our 81 new engineers and townplanners. We have thus far appointed;· Nine provincial managers, most of whom are engineers.

· Thirty six civil engineers with seven of them being chief engineers,

· Fourteen electrical engineers,

· Sixteen town and regional planners.

· Seven candidate civil engineers, who are experienced engineers who are in the process ofcompleting their professional registration.

Our technical support programme will run until the end of April 2021.

You have joined us in the spirit of Thuma Mina as outlined by the President in the State ofthe Nation Address. You join us in the middle of an active programme of working to turnaround the dysfunctional and distressed municipalities so that the lives of our people canimprove. You have a huge responsibility to improve the management of key infrastructureespecially in predominantly black residential areas where people are suffering from constantoutages of electricity or the breaking water pipes leading to no water for days or even weeksand indeed the building of new infrastructure altogether.

As part of youth development, MISA has also appointed 62 young graduates in civilengineering, electrical engineering, town and regional planning, project and constructionmanagement as well as solid waste management fields. Our overall recruitment programmeis still continuing. The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent has advertised for moreengineers and town planners to fill existing vacancies as the MISA organogram makesprovision for 150 technical experts.

We are aware of the shortages of skills in critical sectors such as water engineering and ournext recruitment drive will seek to correct that shortage.Our engineers will find serious problems in the water and sanitation sector due to eitherageing infrastructure, inferior quality built historically or poor maintenance in predominantlyblack residential areas. Some municipalities face problems related sewage spillages orblockages. Ditsobotla Local Municipality in North West. Some municipalities in Mpumalangasuch as Lekwa and Govan Mbeki are also facing sewage spillage problems and this impairsthe dignity of residents.

We sent service providers this past weekend to help unblock the sewers in Mpumalanga,while teams are assisting in Ditsobohla and will be doing the same in other areas. TheMunicipal Infrastructure Support Agent is also busy with infrastructure projects such as thefixing of roads, boreholes and other infrastructure in a number of areas and we will distributethe list.

We will be looking to you as our technical teams to help our people by fixing these problems.

The technical experts will work with the governance and financial management experts thatthe Department of Cooperative Governance is in the process of sourcing. The MISAtechnical experts will focus on infrastructure management, while the national and provincialCOGTA Departments will attend to financial management and governance issues, workingwith the national and provincial treasuries. Our complete technical support team will thus beconstituted by a civil engineer, an electrical engineer, a project and construction manager, atown and regional planner, a financial manager, and an expert in governance andadministration.

The teams are expected to build permanent capacity in these municipalities beyond projectimplementation. To improve monitoring, COGTA is exploring the acquisition of ICT capabilityand an early warning system dashboard.

This ICT capability will improve our effectiveness in supporting early interventions and willenable us to support our district support teams better.

We want to build functional municipalities. Functional municipalities are well-managed and

deliver the basic services. The pride of any municipality is access to healthy potable andhigh quality water, good roads, a clean environment, working street lights, and anefficiently-run administration with good governance and no corruption. We are determined tobuild such municipalities.

We unveiled our Thuma Mina Pledge to the President of the Republic when he visitedCOGTA and this mantra guides our work, and will guide these technical experts as theyexecutive their responsibilities in the 55 municipalities.

THE COGTA THUMA MINA PLEDGE:

I want to be there when our people turn municipalities around. Send me!When they triumph over poverty unemployment and inequality I want to be there.

When our people protest and cry out for service delivery I want to be there.

I want to be there for the indigent unemployed and those in informal settlements.

I want to lend a hand when our people fight against rigging of tenders fraud and corruption.

I want to be there when our people eliminate crime, violence and the abuse of women andchildren.

I want to be there in the fight against HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis and cancers.

I want to be there to ensure food security and healthy lifestyles, Send me!

I want to be there when our people fight for land and get involved in the agrarian revolution.

I want to be there when our people clean the streets of our towns and cities to reclaim ourdignity and pride.

I want to be there when our people fix the potholes, broken lights and cut the grass on theverges of the roads.I want to be there to ensure that natural disasters do not reverse our development gains.

I want to be there when our people share in the country's wealth to be included in a growingand vibrant economy.

I want to lend a hand in the struggle to improve the lives of all South Africans.

I want to be there for nation building, social cohesion and the protection of human rights forall.

THUMA Mina, Send Me!

I am ready to serve our people, nothing else but serve our people.

Thuma Mina!

I thank you!

Issued by the Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs